


I Need To Forget You

by TheNameIsBritney



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Bad Parenting, Fluff and Angst, Guitars, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Ruminating about bad parenting, Singing, We Stan kings who can talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28069308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNameIsBritney/pseuds/TheNameIsBritney
Summary: Before his parents kicked him out, his sister had been trying to teach him how to play the acoustic guitar. Andrea hadn't been quite the musician that Luke is, but she'd tried her best. Alex remembers being 15 and sitting on the edge of her bed, her guitar in his arms as she told him where to place his fingers. He also remembers complaining endlessly about how much the strings hurt his hands.Another exploration into Alex’s feelings about his family after his death.(plus self indulgent guitar playing inspired by that video Owen posted on Instagram of him playing the guitar in the dark)
Relationships: Alex & Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 99





	I Need To Forget You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from I Don’t Wanna Be Friends by Jake Scott!!
> 
> Also: I typed this on my iPad, so im sorry if there are any weird typos or mistakes !

The studio is cold when Alex walks in. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised, it’s barely five in the morning and everyone is asleep.

They technically don't need to sleep but Luke and Reggie like to try anyway. Alex finds he's too wired to even do that; he’s been this way since before he died.   
  
He eyes his drum kit and walks over, gently the tapping on the batter head with the pads of his fingers. He doesn’t really feel like playing right now. The morning feels too quiet for that.   
  
Then, he sees it. A six string in the corner that Alex assumes belonged to Julie’s mom.

He walks over tentatively, keeping his footsteps quiet as he approaches, almost as it he's approaching a wounded animal. When the guitar is finally within reach, Alex reaches out and gently plucks a string, listening to the muted sound of it quietly ring out. He smiles, though it feels bittersweet.   
  
Before his parents kicked him out, his sister had been trying to teach him how to play the acoustic guitar. Andrea hadn't been quite the musician that Luke is, but she'd tried her best. Alex remembers being 15 and sitting on the edge of her bed, her guitar in his arms as she told him where to place his fingers. He also remembers complaining endlessly about how much the strings hurt his hands. 

His fingers begin to itch the longer he looks at the guitar and before he even realizes, he’s picking it up and sitting on the couch, balancing the guitar in his lap.

It feels instantly different from his sister’s guitar. It has a rougher feel from the unvarnished wood, and the curves in the body of it fit differently in his lap... but holding it feels like home. 

It’s a different kind of home, though. 

Alex’s drums are a warm-kind of home. They remind him of long rehearsals and laughing until he couldn’t breathe. They feel like long talks about dreams and hopes with his best friends at midnight, and crying about his parents while Luke, Reggie, and Bobby held him. 

But the guitar... feels different. It reminds him of locking himself in his sisters room and playing Green Day way too loud while their parents stomped around downstairs, pretending to live perfect lives. 

It feels like fear; the fear he’d felt when he’d told Andrea that he liked boys the way he was supposed to like girls. 

He hugs Julie’s moms guitar just the slightest bit tighter when he remembers the way his sister had hugged him _so tightly,_ when he remembers how she’d told him (for the first time in their entire lives) that she loved him. 

Alex takes a deep breath as he positions his hand over the strings and presses down. 

It stings in the same way that it had the first time Andie had tried to teach him how to play, but he finds that he doesn’t really mind so much anymore. He begins to pluck a gentle melody and winces when one of the strings buzzes under his grip. 

“ _Pushin’ past the limits, trippin’ on hallucinogenics.”_

His voice is quiet and the slightest bit gruff from rehearsing all day yesterday, but it feels good to hear it ringing out in the empty studio. He isn’t sure when his eyes slip shut, but all he can see behind his eyelids are flashes of his parents disappointed faces, of Andie’s teary eyes.

The rhythm of Alex’s strumming picks up and morphs into something more aggressive the longer he sings. 

“ _Rippin’ with my sinners ‘cause fuck it, man, I ain’t no beginner._ ” Suddenly, Alex is 14 again, sitting in church and shuffling uncomfortably in his Sunday best as he’s helpless to listen to the minister as he tells them to cast out sinners; sinners that Alex is too afraid to admit he identifies with. 

His parents had always taken the ministers word as if it had come from God himself, so they’d done just as he said. 

When Alex had told them he was gay, they’d cast him out. They’d barely given it any thought at all. 

”’ _Cause I just couldn’t open up, I’m always shiftin’.”_ Alex sighs before launching into the next line, a sour taste in his mouth. “ _Go find yourself a man who’s strong and tall and Christian.”_

The gold chain around his neck burns, heavy with the phantom weight of the cross that used to hang from it. Alex swallows. His eyes feel suspiciously wet as he continues to strum through the end of the song. 

He lets out a shaky breath and leans back against the couch, catching his breath and letting the guitar just lay across his body. It’s quiet mornings like these that make Alex hurt the most. Mornings that are cold and unfocused and quiet; mornings that give him too much space to think. 

He hears the sound of someone proofing into the garage and shoes shuffling against the ground and he sighs. He wipes his eyes before he opens them, seeing Luke and Reggie standing in front of him. 

Reggie is sheepishly fiddling with his fingers and Luke looks vastly uncomfortable; like he’s been caught looking at something he wasn’t supposed to... but seeing them makes a comforting warmth explode in Alex’s chest. 

“Hey,” Alex says softly, lifting the guitar off his lap and putting it on the coffee table, being careful not to scratch the wood. “How much of that did you hear?”

”Pretty much all of it,” Reggie says, flopping down next to Alex on the couch. Alex leans toward him almost automatically. 

Luke joins them. Alex knows he isn’t great with vulnerability, but he can tell he’s trying, and that’s enough to make the tears threaten to spill all over again. 

“You alright, man?” Luke asks quietly. “It looked like things were getting kind of intense.”

Alex sniffs, shrugs, and looks up at the chairs hanging from the ceiling. “I think so,” he says. “I just started thinking about my folks... and Andie.”

Reggie winces and bumps their knees together. Neither of them say anything, but Alex knows they’re listening. 

Luke reaches for Alex’s hand and he welcomes the touch, squeezing Luke back just as tight. 

“I just...” The words get caught in Alex’s throat, “were they sad when they found out?” He clenches his jaw. “A part of me wonders, y’know... maybe they were relieved.”

“Alex—”

”No, Luke, they kicked me out!” He says. “I might as well’ve died right on their porch the night my Dad told me to pack my shit and leave!”

He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but it just happens. He gives Reggie an apologetic look. Alex knows how he gets when people yell. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“It does if it’s hurting you,” Reggie says quietly. “Have you thought about tracking them down?”

Alex tugs at his chain as Reggie’s question twists and turns in his mind. 

Surprisingly, he hasn’t. Not really. The minute he stepped out of that house, his parents had stopped feeling like family. Luke, Reggie, and Bobby had been his family for far longer than his parents had been. 

“No,” Alex says after a moment. “They aren’t my family anymore. You guys are.”

Luke bumps their shoulders together and Alex smiles, grabbing Reggie’s hand with his free one. 

“What about Andie?” Luke asks, stroking his thumb across the back of Alex’s hand. “You told us she was chill when you came out.”

Hearing Luke say her name stings in a way he hadn’t expected. 

“She was.” Alex looks at the guitar sitting on the coffee table. “I do wonder sometimes, I guess but... what good would that do? It’s not like I could talk to her. And even if I could, it’s not... I couldn’t hurt her like that.”

Reggie furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Alex sighs. “If she did mourn me when I d-died...” for some reason saying the ‘d’ word feels harder than it’s ever felt, “I couldn’t put her through that again just to ask her whether or not mom and dad cried at my funeral.” _Had they even given him a funeral?_

All three of them fall silent as the morning sun finally starts to rise. Alex leans his head back and feels a smile grow on his face; because for the first time since all of this started, he feels... okay. 

He hates not knowing so much about his own life (or death, he supposes), but... death gave him so much. 

“I know dying sucked.” Alex looks down at his, Luke’s, and Reggie’s clasped hands and smiles wider. “But I think _this_ was... the best worst-case scenario.”

Luke grins, too. “Yeah?”

A sunbeam streams into the garage and catches against the glass of the window, causing a rainbow to appear on the very edge of Alex’s knee. It’s so perfectly absurd that he can’t help but giggle. 

“Yeah,” Alex says breathlessly, letting go of Luke and Reggie’s hands so he can wrap his arms around their shoulders instead.

Because they’re all that really matters. 

His family. 

**Author's Note:**

> Song referenced is Hallucinogenics by Matt Maeson!
> 
> Idk if this is directly related to that OTHER angsty one shot I wrote about Alex and his family but.........I referenced it a little; specifically with the bit about him taking his cross off when he got kicked out!! I just have so many thoughts about him and his backstory and I get so fucking EMO
> 
> anyway :) hope u enjoyed reading!! Comments and kudos are appreciated !! And if u wanna follow me on tumblr and follow along with my significantly less angsty social media AU, my URL is alexthedrummerboy!
> 
> \- Brit xx


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